Is traffic the worst part of Taiwan's lingering third worldism?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
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Some more traffic accidents.

Driver high on drugs hits 3 pedestrians in Taichung after jumping the curb and even hitting the pedestrian overpass. The 3 pedestrians hit are students at National Taiwan University of Sports who were out on a morning run. None of them were seriously hurt. The driver gets out and starts yelling at people. He tried to run away but people stopped him from leaving.

Happy Moon Festival, 2 of your family members are dead! A dumbass does an overtake and drives straight into an oncoming car, killing 2 of the passengers in the other vehicle. The woman in the car hit was sitting in the back seat and didn’t have a seatbelt on and flew forward and slammed into the windshield. She was OHCA on the scene. Had she worn a seatbelt she would’ve been alive.

People here are terrible at overtaking (and that’s being nice). If they don’t try to sideswipe you or run you off the road they try to put you at risk of a head on collision. Again I’ll share this one, an infamous case where a woman crossed into the oncoming traffic lane despite their being an oncoming motorcyclist. She has a head on collision with him. By her own admission she expecteded him to avoid her, rather than her sit in her own damn lane and wait for a safe chance to overtake.

Guy was having car trouble or something and put his daughter in the driver seat while he pushed and it’s suspected that the car was in drive and that the daughter accidentally pressed the accelerator instead of the brakes and accelerated forward, crashing into vehicles stopped at the red light, which then sent one of the stopped vehicles flying forward into the pedestrian crossing the street.

Left turning driver hits a pedestrian.

Lady crossing the street is hit by a left turning driver and was trapped under the car.

Driver makes a left turn and cuts off an oncoming scooter. After the collision the driver then mistakes the gas for the brakes and drives onto the sidewalk, almost hitting two pedestrians. People online have joked that China has tofu buildings, Taiwan has tofu bollards.

Huge intersection and total waste of space, a Taiwan specialty. No one is stopping for a kid trying to cross the street where pedestrians have priority. Cammer is first one to stop and then of course the kid almost gets taken out by a left turning driver.

“Professional” driver. Trying to illegally overtake multiple vehicles on a bend as a large truck…stupid. Don’t worry though, the NT$900 fine will surely teach him a lesson.

Another shit driver. Don’t slow down to check for oncoming traffic…clearly see oncoming traffic anyways but still just turn into them. They flipped the oncoming car on it’s side. Stupid.

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Taiwan traffic is full of surprises, but nothing prepares you for Roosevelt Road during peak hours.

I was driving my car in the third lane. A scooter was right next to me in the second lane. On the far right, two cars were parked illegally, leaving a narrow alleyway between them.

Out of nowhere, another car pulled out of that alley. The driver did not check the main road at all. They just shot straight onto Roosevelt Road, cutting right in front of the scooter.

The scooter was going too fast to brake. To avoid a collision, the rider swerved left into my lane.

I had less than a second to react: If I stay here, I run over this rider.

So I swerved left too, coming within inches of a massive city bus.

By pure luck, nobody touched anyone. No crash, no injuries, just a spike in adrenaline.

Once the panic wore off, the real absurdity of the situation hit me.

If I had hit that bus, I would have been stuck on the side of the road for hours waiting for the police, filling out insurance claims, and doing paperwork. Meanwhile, the illegal parkers, the reckless alley driver, and the speedy scooter rider would just keep driving home. They would leave without a scratch, probably unaware they almost caused a three-way accident.

That is daily life on the roads here: illegal parking, zero checking, fast scooters, and domino-effect near-misses.

Enjoy the food and the friendly people in Taiwan, but stay sharp whenever you step near the street.

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Dashcam, dashcam, dashcam! Make sure you have front and rear hi-res at a minimum! The alley driver and illegal parkers would all be responsible in the event of an accident, illegal parking makes one automatically 15% responsible in any accident no matter what happened, so illlegally park and someone looking at their phone runs up your ass, parker get 15% of the bill minimum and a fine.

If you do have a dashcam you can report the alley dasher for not giving way to traffic already on the road, given how they usually drive could probably add not using an indicator too. Unfortunately dangerour driving will probably not pass as the police will tell you it wasn’t intentional…

With regards to spending hours, the police are usually fast on the scene especially in a busy area like that. For the hours afterwards and the follow up, minimise it by having proper insurance! Never rely on the minimum compulsory insurance, I learned after the first accident here, which wasn’t my fault, and upped my cover considerably, it actually doesn’t cost much to have proper insurance. The beauty of it is you just hand the police accident report to your insurance company, go to the garage you want to use, give them the insurance details and everything gets taken care of, no need for negeotiation for the other driver, no need for arbitration when they don’t want to pay, no bs.

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Do you really need hi-res? what would be more than that?

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Yes, high frame rate QHD if you can afford it.

Side cameras, telephoto front, interior, all depends on how much you want to spend.

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I got one for $50. We’ll have some basic imagery at least

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First off, I am glad you are still alive!

Now for the follow up analysis. I see what happens on Roosevelt Road almost every single day, and it’s not only “fast scooters” that make this road unpleasant and dangerous—the entire road is designed to encourage car drivers to go fast too!

A huge amounts of public space is dedicated here to cars, who fly down that road at extremely high speeds. Car drivers also love running through red lights in my area, with no penalties of course.

If I was in charge, I would double or triple the size of the sidewalks (like they did on Xinsheng South Road). I’d add nice trees and a dedicated space for bicycles. I would then make it one lane only each way for cars while keeping the dedicated bus lanes. I would double or triple the frequency of the MRT Green Line to encourage people to use this excellent transit system instead of driving dangerously fast in their cars. I would add more youbike stations along the way to help people with shorter journeys.

I think my plan would slow cars down quite a bit, and also make it less likely that the terrible situation you described could threaten your life or the lives of others. It would also make that part of Taipei far less noisy and far more pleasant for human beings, reducing emissions too.

Guy

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Also traffic light cameras on every set of lights, and add a zero at the end of every fine to make it more painful.

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Hey, but at least the police have their priorities straight and are clamping down on offences committed against public morality. :innocent:

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Driver turning left nearly runs down two students crossing the street. One student had to run out of the way. The drivers gets called out by the girls he nearly hit and he loudly yells back that he is turning, seemingly implying he has right of way. This happened near Miaoli train station.

At this exact same intersection on the same day a patrolling police officer pulls over someone who failed to use their turn signal until after they finished changing lanes. It turns out to be another drug driver!

Hit and run.

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Lots of drugs now, a lot more

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Fines are mostly still the same as they were in the 1980s, i.e. adjusting for inflation, they’re about a third of the value that they used to be. The MOTC should immediately triple all fines across the board (except those that have already been increased by at least that amount in the past 50 years), just to bring them in line with inflation.

And even then by international standards, they’d still be low. So, sure, add a 0 to the end of all fines instead! I’d be okay with that. Then we’d see some real tantrums on the streets. :nerd_face:

The one I try not to fixate on is NT$500 for riding a scooter without a proper helmet, or not worn correctly. Even bringing it to $1,500-1,800 is perhaps not quite enough, given the effect it has on Taiwanese healthcare, but sure, it’s a start. But my problem with it is that it’s still a $500 fine for children on the scooter without a helmet.

Adults have agency. When they risk their own life like that, then yeah, a $2,000 fine seems to me to be in line with the damage they do to themselves and the cost to the healthcare system (not $500, that’s a fucking joke). But when they risk a child’s life like that? Let’s start at $20,000 for a first offence, and child neglect / child endangerment charges after that, please.

But obviously this won’t happen in Taiwan. It would require a genuine concern for the lives and wellbeing of the children, instead of the childish asshole drivers.

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What an a-hole, in every aspect shown in that video.

Guy

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I actually heard the bu shu fu excuse first hand a couple days ago.

I was in a taxi and the driver drove off early before the light changed. He got pulled over by a cop. He said he was bu shu fu and needed to pee!

The cop ticketed him and then he started slagging the cop off pretty badly. Lucky that he lives in taiwan and not America or he would have probably been shot dead on the spot!

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Another drug driver kills someone. A woman in her 80s was out walking when she stopped on the side of the road (no sidewalk) to talk to a cyclist. A blue truck driver veered over towards her and slammed into her, killing her and then fled the scene.

A bit of an update on one of the victims. One of the students did end up being seriously hurt, having a skull fracture with bones shattered which required cranial reconstruction surgery. There’s a possibility of permanent aftereffects. This student had just been through rehab training recovering from an injury for the past year and recently rejoined the school team now that he was all better and then this incident happened.

The driver got out of the car screaming he has money. The man was released on bail, having to only pay NT$30,000.

In Kaohsiung some drivers are so shit they are running up on the curb when turning right and hitting the pedestrian crossing light pole.

On Threads I saw this post. Also a right turning driver who gets himself stuck on a bollard. I’m not sure what’s more surprising, someone who’s this bad at driving or that the bollard didn’t crumble into little pieces like tofu…well the first one broke away but the other one didn’t.

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Some more cases of unlicensed people. Rider is unlicensed and isn’t happy about his vehicle being impounded and keeps resisting officers and yelling and won’t just sit in the police car.

Taxi driver gets checked by police. When asked if he has a license he says he has a professional driver’s license…but actually his driver’s license is suspended due to a previous drunk driving charge so he has no valid license.

Drunk? Drugs? Unlicensed? Phone? Getting frisky with the passenger? Just a bad driver? All very real possibilities.

Cammer on a scooter/motorcycle notices the large truck coming up from behind not slowing down and moves into the inner lane. Soon after the truck slams into a car stopped at the red light which gets flung across to the other side of the intersection. The truck driver said he didn’t notice the red light. I guess he didn’t notice the other vehicles stopped at the red light either.

Stupid riding. 19yr. old riding way too fast and going into a bend brakes and loses control as the bike starts to wobble and he crashes into a car with him falling in front. The car driver, presumably in a panic, doesn’t hit the brakes. The driver then hits the accelerator dragging the scooter rider and now his life is in danger. This could’ve been avoided by just slowing down earlier. On Threads I saw the poster and the dashcam GPS had them going at about 100km/h on the straight and dropping to about 80km/h going into the bend. Just slow down a bit…not worth it especially with traffic.

New sidewalk around a school in Taichung. Now it’s being used as a scooter parking lot by nearby residents. As for some reason the city didn’t put a no parking sign on this section parking, by default, motorcycle parking is generally allowed as the sidewalk is more than 3m wide. A very stupid rule, but that’s how it is in Taichung. There is already a temporary parking/drive through area for parents to pick up and drop off kids. So as is now kids have to avoid scooters coming on and off the sidewalk here as well, police can’t do anything about it. The school uses this spot as a pick up and drop off area and has an overhang to help block the rain as students wait. Now it’s just another parking spot. Good job Taichung.

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I’m not sure anyone speeding at an intersection with road workers deserves a soft landing.

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With his left hand on his leg.

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Can’t be arsed to do anything about it. They could fine the riders for riding on the sidewalk. I reported scooters parked on the sidewalk at my kids school gates in the evenings after the late classes at least twice a week for the whole of last year using the APP and never see an officer arrive even once. I report riding on the sidewalk when I can get video and it keeps the habitual offenders off for a month or so, 5 fines is my record for one persistent &^%#.

There’s a police officer “on duty” in the mornings and they all purposely turn their back when cars park at the bus stop, they’ll only ever do something when a bus arrives and doing something involves blowing their whistle until the car driver deigns to recognize them and wave, not even move off, have never seen a fine issued.

Once my kids finish in the school I may become far more overt in recording &^%$'s, might even make the news!

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Wow, I suspect most offences are a small minority of repeat offenders.

Good news ! I have seen multiple pedestrian crossing islands being constructed around Kaohsiung city area. Like proper ones you see overseas.

They have also rebuilt many of the outer pavements around the city.

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I’m so sick of this shit man!